


When You are Old

by 4vrAFangirl



Category: BioShock
Genre: Atlas is Not Frank Fontaine, Atlas is Real, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 13:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14057559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4vrAFangirl/pseuds/4vrAFangirl
Summary: He has to go back. Has to be sure. If there’s some chance, any chance… Fontaine’s words haunt him, but so too does the companionable Irish brogue over a crackling radio, the voice that had been his friend and constant companion in that underwater hellscape. Atlas. Could it be possible Fontaine had based this character he created on a real man? Could he still be alive?





	When You are Old

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent because watching my husband playthrough Bioshock reminded me of how bitter I am Atlas wasn't real, and probably due for some editing in the future because I wrote this incredibly late at night and on very little sleep, but I've not posted anything on AO3 in forever, so it seemed time to share a new work.
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? I write for all manner of fandoms and ships! Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [4vrafangirl](http://www.4vrafangirl.tumblr.com)

“You are chasing a ghost,” Tenenbaum protests, shaking her head. “Less than a ghost! You cannot go back there.”

She doesn’t say that they all only managed to escape by the skin of their teeth before, but she doesn’t have to remind him. They all dream of Rapture still, and the nightmares held within. He can’t entirely explain it to himself, let alone to her. There are still nights he bolts awake, drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, still half sure he’s been crushed under the weight of the Big Daddy suit, or chased by splicers, crying out for help countless fathoms beneath the ocean where no one can hear and no one is coming to help him. And what if that’s him? What if he’s still back there? Trapped somewhere? Crying out for help where no one was able to hear him?

He has to go back. Has to be sure. If there’s some chance, any chance… Fontaine’s words haunt him, but so too does the companionable Irish brogue over a crackling radio, the voice that had been his friend and constant companion in that underwater hellscape. Atlas. Could it be possible Fontaine had based this character he created on a real man? Could he still be alive?

“What about the little ones,” she presses.

“They have you. And I will be back,” Jack replies. He’s rehearsed this bit and is disappointed to find the words sound it too. He can’t be sure of that. He can’t be sure of much of anything. But he has doubts. Doubts and just the slightest hint of hope. A hope, he can’t entirely rationalize or put into words, but can’t seem to let go of either. He has the girls, there’s a niggling sense of responsibility and guilt that they should be enough, that he should lead by example and attempt to put Rapture behind him, but…

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for,” Tenenbaum sighs heavily, shaking her head once more before leaving him to his thoughts.

It’s true. Atlas is a face on propaganda posters. A voice over the shortwave radio. He’s no way of knowing how much of what he remembers, of what he latched onto fighting his way through his impossible nightmare was real and how much was simply what Fontaine knew or imagined would appeal to him. But Atlas had. Appealed to him. Just as the thought of him alone, hurt, maybe even afraid appeals to some baser instinct to protect and defend. That could be Fontaine again, he is, he knows now not an ordinary man, perhaps- as Ryan asserted- not really a man at all, but freed from the power of suggestion he’s trying to be. And he wants to be the sort of man that wouldn’t leave a friend behind.

Thinking of Atlas that way- as a friend of any sort- is itself flawed. It’s incredibly unlikely that he ever spoke to or heard the real Atlas’ voice. The posters Ryan plastered everywhere may not truly bear much likeness. Even if he does manage to find him, there’s nothing between them, no reason why Atlas should trust or even recognize him. He is likely chasing a ghost, or at the very least, the idea of a man as much as the man himself.

One of the eldest girls, Penny, had called it imprinting. Like their own relationship with the Big Daddies. Much as he has been trying to find and reassert a sense of agency, the assessment hadn’t felt wrong. Atlas is stamped in his mind, his heart, it feels his very soul, if he does indeed have one. He is safe, free, and he has the girls. They’ve found a haven, a family amongst themselves, albeit a strange one, but the sense of something missing, of being incomplete persists.

“He was real,” Sasha interrupts quietly from where she’s noiselessly sidled up beside him, slipping her tiny hand into his and offering it a reassuring squeeze. He should probably scold her for eavesdropping, but he can hardly bring himself to, so shaken by this revelation. “I remember him.”

“Atlas,” Jack asks, ignoring the way his voice cracks a little as he instinctively kneels down to the little girl’s level to speak.

“He came to see us a few times,” Sasha nods. “I was little, but I remember. He looked sad. He had a little boy, he said, but he lost him.” Jack’s heart clenches a little tighter in his chest. Fontaine might not have been a family man, but perhaps some of the identity he’d been so proud of constructing had in fact been based on truth. “I told him maybe he got lost in the crowd at one of the fancy parties. He said he wished he could see the world the way we did, but I don’t think he really liked it. He argued with Dr. Suchong a lot. They were yelling once. He said it was wrong- that we couldn’t understand and should have had a choice. A couple of men came and made him leave. He didn’t come back anymore after that,” she continues. “I missed him. He was nice. And he always brought us all sweets.”

Atlas. Jack’s mind swims, his heart hammers so loudly in his chest he thinks for a moment Fontaine’s threat about forcing it to eventually fail him is finally coming true. Atlas was real. Is real? How little, Jack wants to demand. How little were you? How long ago did you last see him? What else did he say? Do? What did the men look like that took him away? But Sasha is a shy, quiet girl, and all of them are still fragile, still recovering and learning how to reclaim the sort of life that was robbed from them. He won’t scare her. Won’t press her for more answers than she’s readily able and willing to give, even if it kills him not to. She’s told him enough. There was a man named Atlas. A father. A good man. And there may be still.

“You’re going back to find him,” Sasha continues, as he fights to draw himself back from his thoughts to focus on her once more. “Penny told us. When you find him, can you give him this,” she asks hopefully, digging a small candy from the pocket of her dress and pressing it into his palm. “Caramels were his favorite, but he always saved the last one for me.”

Jack’s fingers close around the candy as he nods, albeit a bit woodenly. There is simultaneously a numbness, and a thrumming within him, a renewed urgency for his purpose. When he finds Atlas, not if. And distantly he thinks, Atlas isn’t the only one who might like to see the world the way the girls do.

He buys a boat this time. Well, he steals a boat and leaves what he’s sure is insufficient compensation, but it’s the best he can do. He’ll return it if he can, he resolves. He’s going back to Rapture knowingly, willingly this time. No need for anyone else to die. Except where it can’t be helped. He can’t fly a plane. He’s never sailed before either, but of the two, it’s got to be the easier to learn, hasn’t it? So he steals a boat. He hugs and kisses the girls, and renews promises to them and Tenenbaum he can’t truly be certain of his ability to keep, and sails out into the endless blue.

It’s brighter, being on the ocean, instead of beneath it. At times, nearly blinding where the sun glints off the surface. He squints but doesn’t look away. He’s done his best to come up with a few places to search, but Rapture is a sprawling city if a crumbling one. There’s no telling how long it may take him to find Atlas and it’s difficult to measure time without the sun. He does his best to soak it in, to enjoy it while it lasts. If he’s still alive, he’s going to do his damndest to make sure Atlas is able to see and feel the sun again too.

Jack’s chest tightens. He tries not think as he cuts down the last Slicer to swarm him about the likelihood of finding Atlas alive. He’s done a fair job of dismissing such thoughts so far, enough at least to convince himself of coming back to this hell-hole, but if he is alive Fontaine would have kept him locked up somewhere. It would have been too risky not to. He would hardly have armed him, and not all Splicers are as stupid and far gone as these ones. He eats a protein bar from a nearby vending machine and feels his stomach churn with the wonder of how long it's been since the last time he will have eaten, redoubling his speed and efforts and hoarding all the extra food he can afford to carry with him.

In the end, it’s chance. It’s a few too many bullets and cuts from his scrapes with some Splicers. He needs a place to sit, to bandage himself, to rest a little. He finds an apartment somehow still locked- several times over in fact- and seemingly untouched. A fortress and busts the padlocks and keypad posts a hacked sentry outside the door and closes it behind him, pushing a heavy nearby dresser against it. The familiar click of a gun being cocked sees him freezing, slowly turning to face his adversary. He drops his wrench, though more from shock than the threat of violence.

“A-Atlas,” Jack stammers, eyes going wide. “Is- is it really you?” He feels foolish almost as soon as the words have left his mouth, but he can’t seem to help it. It’s a near enough thing to stop himself rushing forward to hug, touch, to somehow reassure himself the other man is real.

The brunette snorts derisively, shaking his head as he pulls himself to a more straight-backed position sitting against the headboard of the bed across the room. A bag of potato chips and a couple of candy bars burns a hole in his pocket as Jack takes him in. He looks thin. Not yet emaciated, but certainly not so far from it. There are traces, hints of a once sturdier, more impressive physique, something nearer to the countless propaganda posters. Still handsome, Jack thinks, fighting back a blush, acutely aware Atlas still hasn’t lowered the gun he’s trained on him.

“Yer an articulate one, ain’t yeh,” Atlas chuckles, shaking his head once more. “An’ just who are you supposed to be then, eh, boyo?”

Now is decidedly not the time, but Jack can’t help but sag a little under the relief that floods through him at the sound of that voice. It shouldn’t be familiar, the two have never actually spoken to one another before, but it seems Fontaine’s impression was an accurate one. He would have adjusted, of course, had that not been the case. Would have loved him even if he’d had some sort of southern drawl, but…Shit. Loved? Loved.

“Well,” Atlas demands, reminding him he still hasn’t answered him yet.

“Jack. I’m Jack,” he replies finally swallowing. “I’ve come to get you out of here.” I aim to keep you alive, he thinks, recalling some of the first words he heard after the plane crashed.

“That right? Fontaine got some better digs in mind for me? Apartments becoming too jammers to keep me here anymore? Well, far be it for me to take the piss out of you or ‘im, but can’t say as I see the point Jacky-boy. Gotta be easier ways teh get rid of a man. Coulda just waited a few more days to send yeh if that’s what he wanted, the kitchen ran dry a while back.” Jack’s eyes dart momentarily to gun and Atlas laughs, finally dropping the weapon from where it’s been trained on his head.

“Nah, don’t fret. Empty,” he informs him, waving it carelessly before letting it drop into his lap. “Imagine Frank had a good chuckle about that one. Giving me hope just ‘ta take it away. That’s Fontaine all over ain’t it?”

“He’s dead,” Jack manages to eek out, heart still hammering at the thought of precisely what sort of hopes the pistol may have inspired when the other first found it. “Fontaine is dead. And Ryan,” he presses on, desperate now to offer some manner of comfort, but uncertain as to how.

“May they rot,” Atlas spits with a scowl. “It’s no less than they deserve.” He continues to study Jack, though, as if searching for something. He doesn’t seem nearly as relieved at this news as one might expect. He doesn’t believe it, Jack thinks watching him. How many ways, how many times must Fontaine have toyed with him? And for how long? “Tell me then, boyo, if the gods of Rapture are dead who are you workin’ for? Who was it that sent you?”

“No one,” Jack protests, but they don’t sound convincing to him either. It’s neither entirely true or false to say, but the truth is… so much more complicated, and he doubts the truth of his origins is likely to endear or convince Atlas of his being an ally or possible friend. “It’s a long story,” he sighs finally, leaning back against the dresser behind him.

“Got nothing but time down here,” Atlas laughs, gesturing to the spartan room around them with another hollow chuckle. “Well, we will, maybe after you patch yourself up a bit.”

The bottom of his jumper’s nearly red from the blood. The rest of it doesn’t look terribly much better. One stray thread from any of the many rips and cuts snagging on something and he’s pretty sure the whole now disgusting woolen thing would unravel, but it hadn’t been important. Nothing was, except finding the man who continues to watch him warily from across the room as he sets himself to examine the damage. It’s bad. Really he should have put one of the first aid kits to use as soon as he killed that last Splicer, but he’d been so tired. Exhaustion still pulls at him, but the thrill of having found him, the desperate desire to convince Atlas he’s not a threat seem to be overriding it, at least temporarily. A bloody, probably somewhat crushed, but otherwise intact and unopened bag of potato chips tumbles out from where he’d tucked it under the sweater and onto the floor. Atlas laughs but falls quiet when he picks it up, immediately tossing it and to him. Jack twists, biting his lip so hard he tastes the coppery tang of blood in his mouth to bite back any whimpers of pain from the slash at his hip as he digs the candy bars from his back pocket and throws them over onto the bed as well.

Atlas eyes the food for a moment, considering, before determining they’re likely untampered with or his hunger gets the better of him. It’s hardly a feast, and already Jack resolves himself to doing his utmost to see the man fed and put back a healthy amount of weight to his frame once the pair of them return to the surface, but it’s hardly as though he could have carried much more. Jack lets himself slide carefully to sit on the floor, letting his head tip back to the dresser behind him, heavy eyes falling closed as with a deep breath he begins relating everything from the beginning, or at least the beginning that he remembers.

“Your voice was the first one I heard.” The words sound foolish as soon as they leave his lips and he fights the urge to wince, but he doesn’t know how to tell the story without emotion bleeding through. “I mean, I know it wasn’t you,” he adds hastily when Atlas seems to rush to finish his current bite of candy bar to say something. “But I didn’t then,” he continues. “I was just… grateful not to be alone down here. I don’t think I would have made it otherwise.”

The now empty bag of chips crumple in Atlas’ fist when he gets to Andrew Ryan’s last moments, dark eyes a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions he doesn’t seem ready to voice yet, and Jack pauses, shuddering a little at the memory of Ryan’s bloody body on the floor. He’d killed countless Splicers, plenty of Big Daddies to get there, but it was easier somehow, to divorce himself from them. To think of their deaths as a necessary evil, perhaps even a kind of mercy. He’d thought Ryan’s death was necessary before he’d walked into that office. Certainly, Ryan had made his feelings towards him clear. It could only be kill or be killed. Then Ryan had used that phrase, pulled his puppet strings, toyed with him for some moments, then taken away his ability to choose. Ryan’s body looks an even bloodier abomination than most of the Splicers he’s yet seen, but this was hardly a mercy and Atlas… whoever he is, whatever he wants, is using that damned phrase again. He picks up the key even as he grinds his teeth, wills himself to do anything else. Something contrary, something for himself, a little voice in his head growing steadily louder stubbornly protesting ‘I am a man. I am not a slave’.

“Can I test it,” Atlas asks cautiously as silence momentarily falls between them. “The phrase? Only, if you really plan to spring me, boyo, for reasons I still can’t imagine why it’d be a comfort to be sure nobody can say a few pretty words and turn yeh on me.”

Jack blinks, gaze falling back to the man across the room. He hadn’t really expected that question. It’s a fair one, he supposes, even if the thought of that phrase, of the real Atlas, saying it to him makes his stomach churn. Finally, he nods. The whole point of telling him all of this has been to earn Atlas’ trust. He can do this. And he knows Tenenbaum has rid him of the power of suggestion Fontaine and Suchong planted in him. Atlas impressed, seems to consider this for a moment.

“Would yeh kindly stand up,” Atlas tries. Jack remains where he is and makes a point of keeping his body relaxed. Demonstrating as best he can he’s not struggling against any invisible forces by ignoring or disobeying the directive, though he seems to recall Tenenbaum once having muttered something about the futility of trying to prove a negative. “Come over here, would you kindly,” Atlas tries again. Jack doesn’t move. This is a harder suggestion to ignore, but not for any reason Atlas might suspect or that Jack is ready to share yet. The desire to establish some kind of physical contact, to reassure himself the brunette is actually tangible, not just some figment of his desperate imagination is still fierce. But he resists this too.

“The girls,” Atlas manages softly, voice ever so slightly choked as Jack finishes relating Fontaine’s end as well. “They’re… alright? They got out?” Jack nods, relating the modest life he and Tenenbaum have scraped together for them thus far since finding their way above sea level. That they are safe, recovering, and seem at times, even happy. Atlas’ whose scarcely blinked or said a word throughout the whole thing does his best to inconspicuously wipe his eyes with a sleeve of his shirt.

“Oh,” Jack exclaims, suddenly remembering, shifting a little to plunge a hand into his other pocket. “I don’t know that you’ll remember her, but Sasha wanted me to give you this,” he offers. He’s careful pulling himself to his feet, though it seems the extra caution is necessary as the med-kit has finally healed any lingering pain or injuries. He crosses the room and carefully drops the wrapped hard caramel into Atlas’ outstretched hand. “She said you always saved her the last one, and that she missed you after you stopped coming, though I don’t suppose that was your choice.”

Atlas studies the candy in his trembling palm and gently shakes his head. There’s a smile there, just a hint of one, for the briefest of moments before his brows furrow and it’s replaced with a frown, with unadulterated hatred at whatever thought had followed. “No,” he manages finally, swallowing as his hand closes around the candy. “Not my choice,” he confirms. “My wife’s name was Saoirse,” he offers quietly. “Expect that was too hard for Fontaine to remember or pronounce correctly,” he assesses with a hollow laugh. “We were childhood sweethearts. No one particularly special never had much money, never needed it. We had each other. That was enough. But then there was the war, and talk about secret government spies and operations. We were scared. A lot of people were. Rapture sounded perfect. Untouchable. If we did our part, we’d have a place,” Atlas continues, brow growing increasingly more furrowed. “Men like Ryan and Fontaine didn’t actually want a world free of hierarchy or politics, they just wanted to be on top. And you can bet they made damn sure all the little people stayed exactly where they started.”

“She just wanted a wee bit of time off,” Atlas chokes, the wrapper of the caramel crinkling in his shaking fist, “a little rest before the babe came. They worked her to the bone instead. Started taking more and more ADAM to keep up with it all. Babe came early and I lost them both. Never really gave a fig for politics but after that… figured wasn’t anything else to lose kicking up a fuss. Guess I was wrong about that too,” he chuckles, gesturing to the sparse and dingy room around them. “Got a bit of a following, made a name for myself and Fontaine decided he fancied it for himself.”

Jack swallows the lump that seems to have formed in his throat, nodding stupidly. He wants to say something, but what is there to be said? Fleetingly he thinks of reaching out from where he sits beside him on the bed, a hand on his shoulder, his knee, something… Jack feels entirely and frustratingly helpless and hates it.

“Not to sound ungrateful, boyo,” Atlas huffs after a few uncomfortable moments silence, “but what the fuck would yeh come back to this hell hole for?”

“You,” Jack replies immediately, quite before he can stop himself or think of anything more intelligent to say. It’s the truth, however, regardless of how much the words echo in the mostly empty room, making him want to cringe. For a moment Atlas doesn’t seem to know how to respond.

“That’s- Well, that’s mighty flattering, Jacky, but I can’t say as I understand it any. Fontaine told yeh I wasn’t anything more than a figment of his imagination. How’d you know that wasn’t true?”

“I didn’t,” Jack replies simply, feeling increasingly more stupid for not having come up with anything better to offer in the way of justifying himself or his actions since his initial arguments with Tenenbaum. “Not at first. I just… I hoped. Sasha was the first to say she remembered you. The real you. And I knew if there was any chance you were- real- that you were alive, that I couldn’t just leave you here.”

“You’re a fool,” Atlas replies shaking his head in disbelief, but there’s little real bite to the insult, “but I thank you,” the brunette adds with a polite nod, and Jack smiles. He’s still a bit hazy on some of his memories, sorting through what of his childhood was real, and what was planted to suit other’s needs, but he’s pretty sure, at least in general, people have been fools for less.

“Jacky,” Atlas calls out in alarm over the bullets he’s pumping into a nearby Splicer, as Jack crumples to his knees with a loud, sharp cry of pain. They’re nearly there, almost out of the damned woods, so close it's simply unfair, and that it would be this… Jack laughs softly as Atlas rushes to his side after the last splicer falls. “Talk to me.”

“Heart,” Jack manages between gritted teeth, wrench clattering to the floor as another wave of pain thrums through him, hand rushing up to clutch uselessly at his breast. “Fontaine said it wouldn’t happen right away. Guess I thought after he died, Tenenbaum thought she fixed it, but…” But this is what it had felt like last time. Times about ten. He gets the feeling he’s not walking away from this one. Atlas is already whipping out the first-aid kit, but Jack shakes his head, even as the movement makes him feel faint. “Don’t,” he chokes. “Don’t waste it. You might need it later.”

“You need it now,” Atlas argues ignoring him.

“I don’t,” Jack insists, a weak, too pale hand stretching out to cover his before he can pull the needle out of the kit. “It won’t fix this. It’ll only slow it down.”

“Then we slow it down,” Atlas nods fervently, but he doesn’t seem to have the heart to push his hand away just yet.

“I’ll slow you down,” Jack adds meaningfully. “The Bathysphere-”

“Ain’t going nowhere without the two of us.” Jack smiles, but it’s more apologetic than anything else and Atlas knows it. “Dammit,” he curses, shaking his head. “You can’t do this to me, boyo.”

“I‘m sorry,” Jack mumbles, feeling his strength, his awareness beginning to fade away, the edges of his vision growing dark. Won’t be long now.

“You come swoopin’ in here with your pretty face and the whole white knight routine. Stories like that ain’t supposed to end like this,” Atlas whispers softly, shifting to carefully pull him into his arms. He’s warm and even as skinny as he’s gotten his arms still feel strong, safe. If he has to go…

“Pretty,” Jack repeats curiously.

“Yeh know you are,” Atlas laughs, shaking his head. “My pretty little fool. A glad eye for me before yeh even knew me properly. Just a voice in a box and it wasn’t even properly mine.”

“I know enough,” Jack whispers, not even bothering to deny the accusation. I’d have liked to know more, he thinks ruefully. Atlas glances sideways at the med-kit again, before catching Jack’s eyes and nods, swallowing hard.

“It ain’t fair. A heart as big and stupid as yers just givin’ up like this,” he mutters bitterly. “What can I do? Jacky, please,” Atlas pleads softly. “What do I do?”

It’s not fair to ask, but it’s hardly as if Atlas will simply leave him here to die alone, even if Jack were to tell him to. He’s here, he’s holding him, he thinks he’s pretty, knows that Jack was sweet on him and he’s still there, still holding him, doesn’t care, or if the tears are any indication, has come to care a great deal in the time since he found him.

“Talk to me,” Jack requests softly, eyes slowly sliding shut. “Please.”

“I-” Atlas chokes. “Dammit,” he swears again. “Yeah, okay, boyo,” Atlas sighs heavily. “When you are old and grey and full of sleep and nodding by the fire, take down this book,” he recites recalling an old favorite poem, words a gentle whisper into his hair. “And slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep…” The warmth of his breath, of Atlas’ embrace, the soothing cadence of his voice and familiar brogue wash over him as Jack slowly slips away. “How many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true- but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you…” He finishes the poem, albeit haltingly, and hugs him a moment longer, even knowing he’s already gone.

“You’re gonna live to be old and gray,” Atlas whispers fiercely, forcing himself to recall where the next Vita-chamber is. He can leg it. Can find a way to carry the heavier man to his salvation. He will. If ever there was someone worthy of seeing such an age, it must be Jack. “And so long as you don’t tire of me first, I’m gonna be there to see it.”

 


End file.
